Kleiner Perkins raising $250M China fund

Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is raising a second $250 million fund to invest in Chinese companies, according to a filing. Kleiner hasn’t closed on any of the funds yet, called the KPCB China Fund II, according to the document.

The size of the fund is so far smaller than Kleiner’s first $360 million fund, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, it raised back in 2007. Dow Jones’ Jonathan Shieber reported recently that Kleiner’s Shanghai-based affiliate, KPCB China, has been working on raising a local-currency fund with a target of at least 600 million CNY ($89.4 million). I’m not sure how these funds are related or if they are the same (will update when I know more).

Shieber says that yuan funds aren’t subject to the same investment restrictions as foreign funds. For example, foreign funds can’t invest in companies in certain sectors, like some energy firms. Kleiner has been looking for deals in Internet, cleantech and life sciences in China, but partner Ray Lane said earlier this year that the firm is spending more time on finding cleantech deals there.

Lane told the Journal:

China has an environmental problem that technology can address and that can be a foundation for setting up very successful businesses in China.

Kleiner has been trying to have a closer collaboration between its China-based and Menlo Park, Calif.–based teams, and KPCB China has had significant turnover in 2011. Both partners from KPCB China and Kleiner in the U.S. are named on the filing. The two groups have co-invested in two Chinese firms already, including water filtration company Mobius Water and solar thin film company PVNext Corp, according to the Wall Street Journal.